Free
by nikkiRA
Summary: Oneshot JasperLeah/ In numbing her, he managed to help her truly feel, for the first time in a long time.


**Yes, this is a Leah/Jasper pairing. No, this will never happen, not in a million years. But that is the beauty of fanfiction, children. **

**Anyway, I got this ship idea from both Hope Shalott and twilight22lover. Both their stories are immensely greater then mine, so go check them out, as well. **

**I've realised I tend to write most in the wee hours of the morn. Which is going to pose a problem, since I go back to school tomorrow.  
**

* * *

Nobody really knew who was more surprised when Leah Clearwater showed up on their front porch, but everyone was curious enough not to slam the door in her face, as much as Bella would have liked to.

"I uh… I need to talk to the blond one," she said, eyes low, for once not emitting total confidence and arrogance.

"Which one?" Esme asked nicely. Leah gestured with her hands.

"The guy… the one who can like… do that thing. With the emotions."

"You mean Jasper," Esme smiled. Behind her, Alice growled.

"Alice," Carlisle whispered.

"What does she want with my husband?" Alice growled, glaring intensely at Leah who, if she noticed, didn't pay her any attention.

"We're going to find out, aren't we?"

"Jasper," Esme called out, but he was already downstairs, having overheard the conversation. He looked oddly at Leah.

"What do you want?"

"I need to talk to you," she said, staring at a spot just over his left shoulder. She was uncharacteristically nervous. Jasper could feel her nerves, and they were strong. Even if he didn't necessarily like her, he tried to calm her down.

"Okay."

She sighed. "Not… here."

He glanced at Alice, but she shrugged. She couldn't see Leah's future, so she couldn't see his, either.

"Alright. Fine."

He had walked a few steps before he realised she wasn't following him. "What?"

"Could you like… tell them not to listen?"

He looked at his family. They all nodded.

"Now let's go."

They walked for a bit before he stopped, but she kept walking. "Where exactly are you going?"

"I don't want them listening."

"I told them not to."

"Do you really think I'm going to trust you?"

Jasper sighed but followed her anyway. He didn't really think he had any choice.

They stopped in a clearing. Leah sat down on a stone. She started picking at the moss, trying to build up her confidence. Jasper was getting impatient. Finally, she spoke.

"Jacob… he told me you could… manipulate feelings. You could make people feel things."

Jasper nodded, not sure where this was going.

"I need… I need to… to ask something of you."

Even without his powers, Jasper could have seen how much it hurt Leah and her pride to ask something of someone, let alone a vampire. Suddenly compassionate, he nodded.

"I'll do what I can," he said. She took a few deep breaths.

"I need you to… I mean, uh… could you…" She stopped, took another breath. "I need to know what it feels like. To be free. To not love him anymore."

Jasper searched his brain, trying to remember all the facts he could about the werewolves and their messy pasts.

"Him, as in…"

"Sam."

Even without his powers, Jasper could have seen what saying his name did to her. The way she closed her eyes and drew her bottom lip into her mouth, how much it hurt her just to think of him. Jasper wondered if Leah was normally this transparent, or if she was just abnormally vulnerable now.

"I just… I can't take it. It's been so long, and I want… I just want to _stop_. But I don't know how to stop, so I think that, maybe, if you make it so that I don't love him, I'll know what it feels like, and I'll be able to do it on my own. Do you think you could do that?"

She looked up at him, and Jasper could see just how much she wanted, no, _needed _this. So he nodded. Leah looked suddenly apprehensive.

"Am I supposed to like, do something? Lie on the floor naked or something? Dance around a fire? Sing?"

The sides of Jasper's mouth quirked up. "No. You don't need to do anything."

Leah's emotions were strong. It was always hard, trying to manipulate people when the emotions were strong, which was why it always took so much effort to calm an entire room down. But Leah's emotions were almost like the equivalent to a room full of people. He had never known somebody who felt in such vividness. He had never felt somebody who was so _alive._

Jasper worked hard to overpower every other feeling in Leah's body. The frustration of having to ask a vampire for help; the fear she felt, having somebody tamper with something that had always been _hers_, her emotions; her over protectiveness of both her brother and her Alpha, and, most prominent, her love for Sam. He worked to overpower all of these feelings and replaced them with just _calm_. Not happiness, not excitement, not love, just _calmness_.

Leah felt the change immediately. Her back straightened up, her eyes grew wide, and a small but happy smile erupted on her face. She glanced up at him, eyes gleaming.

"Wow. Jacob wasn't lying."

Jasper just nodded. It was hard- her love for Sam, the strongest feeling of all, kept trying to break through.

"Will it stay like this?" She asked, picking up a leaf and examining it with a serenity he had never before seen in her. He shook his head.

"Once you get far enough away from me, it will stop, and all your old feelings will resurface."

Another emotion pressed against Jasper's barrier- sadness, because she would no longer feel like this. He suppressed it. She threw the leaf down, scooting to the edge of the rock, as if trying to get closer to him but not wanting to make it obvious.

"Oh. Can I just… I mean… just a while longer?" She asked. He nodded.

Leah lay back and stared up at the sky. She smiled. A breeze came by and blew her smell towards him. He suppressed the urge to gag. Then, finally, a fissure in his wall allowed a feeling to slip by.

"I just thought about him," Leah told him, and Jasper let go, causing all the feelings to flow back into Leah's body.

"So I guess that's it, then?" She asked him. He nodded. She sat up.

"Okay. Er… thank you." She said awkwardly, picking at the dirt. He nodded, turning to leave.

"Um," came a voice from behind him. He turned around.

"I know I can't really stop you if you want to, but do you think, maybe, you could avoid telling them about this?"

Jasper looked at her. She was trying ridiculously hard to appear strong and hard, but he could sense how much she didn't want anybody to know about this. He nodded. Leah didn't say thank you again, just turned around and walked in the other direction.

When he got home, they were all waiting, like vultures.

"So?"

He looked at his wife. Then he looked at the rest of his family. Then he said, "She just wanted to know if she had to buy Ness a present for her birthday party next week."

Seven faces fell. "That's it? Why couldn't she ask here?"

Jasper shrugged. "I guess she didn't want Bella or Edward to overhear. I don't know how the werewolves act."

Edward gave him a searching glance, but Jasper wouldn't think about it. He turned away, grabbing Alice by her hand and leading her away.

---

The next time Leah came by was a week later. Edward answered the door.

"Again?" He asked. She glared. He sighed. "Jasper!" He called.

---

She led him to the exact same spot. She sat on the same rock. He stood by the same tree.

"I can't… he's still all I think about. I can't focus my thoughts on anybody else."

"It's only been a week." He tried to reassure her, because he could sense just how anxious she was.

"Just… please? One more time?"

Jasper sighed but obliged none the less.

---

"What was it this time?" Emmett asked when Jasper got back. He simply shrugged.

"Nothing of much importance."

---

The next few times Leah came, Jasper had a good enough sense of her feelings that he was able to meet her outside. It was always the same spot, always the same spot, but by the fourth time Jasper had taken to sitting beside her on the rock.

"I don't understand how I can still feel this way," she complained one day.

"It's not your fault. He's left the biggest imprint- excuse my word choice- on you. Once you meet somebody who leaves a bigger impact, your feelings will go away."

"So I just have to meet somebody I like more then Sam?"

He nodded.

"Damn. That's going to take a while. What do I do until then?"

Jasper looked down at her legs, the way the deep brown so strongly contrasted the whiteness of his skin.

"You come to me."

---

"You're never going to tell us what you two do, are you?"

"Nope."

---

Eventually, he lost count of how many times she came to see him. But one day, while they're sitting on their rock (he couldn't remember when he began to call it that) he was concentrating on keeping her calm (it had gotten considerably easier) he turned to her.

"Leah."

"Yes Jasper?" It was still odd hearing his name come from her lips, but he plundered on regardless.

"How is it you're still feeling things for Sam? After all the times we've done this?"

Leah sighed, leaning back on her hands so that their shoulders were touching. Her skin was burning hot.

"Would you like to know the truth?"

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't."

She gave him one long, searching look, before standing up. Jasper's shoulder felt cold from where her touch had been. Jasper hadn't been cold in more then one hundred and fifty years.

"I don't. Feel anything for Sam, that is."

He looked at her. "Excuse me?"

"I've been faking it, these past few times. It's a lot harder then it sounds, pretending to love somebody."

He thought about how easy it had been to suppress her love for Sam, lately.

"How? Why?"

"Remember how, a while ago, you told me my feelings for Sam would go away when I met someone who would leave a bigger impact on me?"

Jasper nodded.

"Think about it, Jasper," she said, rolling her eyes at his obliviousness. He looked at the rock.

"Is it Jacob?"

Leah let out a strange sound, like a laugh she had tried to disguise as a cough.

"What?"

"Jacob? Is it him?" He wouldn't raise his eyes to meet hers.

"God, are all vampires this stupid?" She asked, and Jasper saw her feet start towards him. He looked up, and suddenly, she was right there. And then she, very gently, put her lips on his.

When she pulled away, Jasper whispered into her mouth, "What are you doing?"

"Writing a novel, dumbass," she said, pressing her lips to his again.

The emotions Jasper felt then were as strong as if they were in a room full of people. There was want and need and fear and desire and the feeling of being free and God, that smell. Jasper couldn't separate his feelings from Leah, but that was okay, because he knew, without a doubt, that they were feeling the same way.


End file.
